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Skyrim came out two months before the end of 2011, and it consumed all of my free time for those two months. And then I continued playing it at a much more leisurely pace throughout 2012 and 2013. I've played for roughly 100 hours during each of the 2011, 2012, and 2013 calendar years.

Good call on picking up the PC version. The mods can really breathe some new life into the game. Let me know if you find any good ones. My favorites are:

Sounds of Skyrim, which simply adds more environmental sound effects.

SkyUI, which improves the User Interface to include an inventory text search

Ha ha, I listened to the podcast on the way home for Christmas and hadn't anticipated Richard's virulent hatred for Batman Origins. That may mean more chance of an outsider winner this year, to challenge the zombie hegemony.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abfackeln

GotY: GTA 5 *dodges rocks from GameCritics community*

I think GTA5 has been well received down here from gamevet and JLB among others, so you're ok - it's just me who didn't get on with it.

Game that shows that touchscreen controls can work and don't suck by default
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (iOS)

Seriously, the touch controls almost work better than both gamepad and mouse & keyboard input on pc and consoles. A tip on my head to the 2K guys porting it to iOS. And a waggle of my finger for how bad it runs on 4S iPhones. I had to close all other programs and restart the phone in order to get the game working. Otherwise it would crash as soon as I start a mission.

Li-Ion's Game of the Year 2013
Gran Turismo 6

I got GT6 as xmas present and have been playing it since. I love it. It is the game GT5 should have been, the game I wanted GT5 to be but which it wasn't. Everything is just better, the handling of the cars, the interface got a major revamp and even though it is still not perfect it is now painless to navigate and loading times are much shorter (albeit still a bit too long for my taste). It is loaded with tracks and cars and exciting races. I've been racing with a muscle car around narrow streets in the Swiss Alps, racing with a Ferrari Dino in Rome and beautiful scenery (the Ferrari Dino is a spectacularly looking car, I might be biased since I love Ferraris, but the Dino is just gorgeous), with the beast of an Audi R8 around the Nürburgring, drove in night races, rallye stages and have the feeling I barely scratched the surface.

Li-Ion's Game of the Year 2013
XCOM: Enemy Within

XCOM Enemy Unknown was a great game, but the expansion Enemy Within really bringt it to the next level. Firaxis made the XCOM brand it's own now, with excellent additions that at first might sound strange but integrate so well with the game. It's also a game that feels and plays so different, depending on which difficulty it's played on. On normal its a sunday morning breakfast cartoon about superheroes saving the world from cheesy aliens. On classic ironman its a grim late evening sci-fi series about men and women fighting a desperate battle against an overwhelming seeming foe. On impossible ironman (II) it's survival horror at its best. Everything is scarce, there is no winning, only trying to loose a bit slower than the last time. It takes the best elements of rouge-likes and puts them into an engrossing strategy and tactics game. I am now playing classic ironman enemy unknown in my iPhone, but it feels too easy. It's nothing like the devastation of loosing my entire squad to a couple of thin men in the early game on II. Or the realization that I will loose two more countries by the end of the month and there is nothing I can do to save both, which will get the doomsday clock to 12 whatever I do. Excuse me, I have a world to save...

Btw, I am surprised at GT6 - how much of it is still like piloting a Lego brick around the track?

I am having a love affair with GT6. I see that it still has it's issues here and there, but I can forgive all those little things for the sheer love of cars on display. I always loved cars and since my evil logical brain rightfully concluded that I don't need a car in my current situation (home -> office is quicker by bike than by car in early morning rush hour, parking and tax on cars is unreasonable expensive in the uk, especially tax for foreign people like me who don't have credit history here etc.) games like GT6, iRacing and such are the only way to get my petrol infused blood pumping.

Was playing with two of my cousins over the holidays. One cited the last racing game he played as Need for Speed 2 (yes, the one from 1997), the other is a true petrolhead who repairs second hand cars as a hobby, next to studying mechanical engineering with the aim to one day engineer better engines for better cars (including electrical ones). The latter was equally enamored by GT6, the former had his issues the first couple of races mostly because he was used to the NFS way of driving in racing games, i.e. never use the brakes, except the handbrake for turns. But after a classic race with a Lambo Countach he was won over as well. We were all equally fascinated by the fact that the instruments, including the mileage counter, are fully working.

In other news, I still haven't played Papers, Please, even though I find the game very fascinating, but also quite uncomfortable. I couldn't really put my finger on it until I read this excellent piece on usgamer (that is united states gamer, not us gamer, or perhaps it's both?).

I am moving around countries like some other people change underwear and even though I have quite some advantages when it comes to travelling (male, white, albeit looking 'too eastern european' to some) and moving (EU citizen), I routinely run into issues while travelling and get the occasional blunt remark. The US border is the worst as far as I can tell, and I'm not even muslim. Some of my friends who happen to be born with the "wrong" nationality (e.g. Iranian, Russian, Indian...) have regular horror stories to tell from their border crossings (or attempted border crossings).

Some of my friends can't even visit me in the UK because it's virtually impossible for them to get a simple tourist visa. They also have jobs that require them to travel a bit and the UK likes to keep passports for certain nationalities for a couple of weeks. Hence I spend more time at airports in order to visit them. That's when you find out that it's a bad idea to take chocolate or cheese with you or in your luggage (looks on x-ray like plastic explosives), that having a playstation in your hand luggage can increase your time at security by 20 minutes (one officer asked me with a straight face to open my 'laptop', after I already told him it's a games console, not a laptop, luckily one of his colleagues had a firm grasp of technology and intervened before anyone could grab a crowbar...) or that boardgames including non-standard dice are subject to extreme scrutiny (my box of d-day-dice went through the scanner 3 additional times, first as box, then with contents removed, then the dice alone again).

Spending too much time on the other side of Papers, Please, I can't bring myself to stamp any more 'denied' in passports just because the visa is one day wrong.

That's an interesting take on Papers Please. I guess I take the immigration control thing for granted, having had very little issues with it (I did get hauled in the back once in the US, was an interesting scene with lots of women with no English coming to visit their husbands etc). What little I played of Papers Please, I had no issue turning people away - I am employed by a state whose philosophy I have bought into, so why would I not do my job to the best of my ability? And it seems like often when you do people a good turn, they try and take advantage. And in the game! By the way, the guys blowing themselves up outside - were they people I let through, or someone else?

I didn't really play enough of it to see what was what though. My family was starving because I turned people away instead of having them arrested (by mistake) and I assume I didn't get paid for those. But I didn't like the game mechanic of cross referencing shit against a timer, that's pretty much why I didn't like it.

[Edit] That is interesting about the PS3. Work may be making me travel more this year, so I guess taking the playstation with me is now out. My Madden league will suffer...